Alas, no. Completely different engine inside. At best you may be able to use the old 16.4.2 settings as a guide for the new III settings, buy you'll probably end up starting from scratch.

To take a snapshot of your old settings the StudioLive Offline Editor may be helpful. Probably easier than going back and forth between two mixers.

Just my thoughts, but you probably won't want the settings ported over. The new fat channel options are really good, and there would be no parameters from the legacy boards to match.

Just my opinion, as a long time 16.4.2 user (have two in fact). The ability to save and recall scenes for different venues and different bands as a working weekend band made Presonus a pioneer in the industry. The jump from analaog boards to this kind of technology was amazing.

That said, the fact they are different engines doesn't mean it's impossible. I can't see it being too difficult to write some code to convert at least aspects of the saved settings (various eq settings, aux mix levels, fader levels, etc.) to a format that could at least be imported to scenes in the Series iii.

At the very least, some software to print out the settings from the stored scenes in a printed format to make them easier to enter into the new board would be awesome. Most users probably have years of tweaking drum eq's and room settings that are valuable and incredibly time saving.

To me, the ability to easily transfer (automated preferably) all the venue and band scenes from the 16.4.2 to the series iii in some manner is the difference between jumping at buying a series iii or if needing to start from scratch, then there is less reason to focus solely on the Presonus offerings. The saved scenes, to me, are a selling point you are missing.

Again, just my opinion from a long time user and satisfied customer.

I agree that there will be some aspects of your saved scenes and settings you can bring over to the new mixer. But I'd use them as a guide rather than as a template.

Example: the old SL16 has semi-parametric EQing on the inputs. The optimal settings with for a particular instrument or voice may well be improved upon now you have a full-parametric EQing available. Or maybe one of the state space filters does an even better job. From the old settings you may take that it needs a little bit round about 1300Hz and then take it from there.

It's the preamps that decide how a mixer sounds and believe me, there are "worlds" between a SL series III and a legacy SL board. They all are called "XMAX Class A preamplifiers", but you you could already hear a big difference when the SL AI boards were released and this continued when the digital preamps were introduced with the RM AI mixers. SL III and RM AI use the same preamps, so the basic sound is identical.

Even if there would have been a chance to "transfer" presets and scenes from my legacy boards to the RM boards I am using now, it would have made no sense because the boards generally sound different. When I listen to live recordings I made with my legacy SL boards, I am always amazed how good that sounds - and how little processing it needs on a RM mixer to make it sound perfect. I remember that it was a lot of work with the legacy boards to make the recordings sound more or less "good". The legacy sound does not at all compare with the sound of RM and SL III. Therefore it does not make sense to transfer legacy settings/sounds.

If there are no sounds to "rescue", then a restoring of scences and room equalization also makes no sense. I remember some special GEQ settings I used with my legacy boards in difficult rooms. With the RM mixers I need only a few corrections, sometimes even no corrections. "Starting from the scratch" does not sound nice, but you will be happy that the new board gives you the chance to evaluate what you had. The SL and RM AI boards made everything sound much, much better.

I would say that the "selling point" is the pristine sound quality of the digital/recallable preamps and an improved workflow. There are not only "worlds" between SL 16.4.2, RM16AI and SL 16, there are also "worlds" between VSL (Virtual Studio Live) and UC Surface 2.

Let the new board surprise you. You will not look back.